NAMES OF WEEK-DAYS. 



chronometric period of a week had its origin in the supposed 

 number of the planetary bodies. This number seven was in other 

 respects regarded by the ancients as being invested with various 

 mystical influences, and as being reproduced in forms infinitely 

 various, not only in the natural objects and phenomena, but even 

 in human events. There were the seven stars, the seven cardinal 

 sins, the seven wonders of the world, the seven critical days in 

 human maladies, the thrice seven years which converted a youth 

 into a man, and so on. In short the number seven was regarded 

 with a sort of religious veneration, so that the announcement of 

 an eighth or ninth planet in Egypt, Greece, or Home would, as 

 Arago wittily observed, have been regarded as such a heresy as to 

 bring upon the unhappy discoverer the maledictions of the priests- 

 and even the punishment of death instead of the honours and 

 rewards of academies and universities. 



50. The week being an arbitrary and conventional chronometric 

 period, having no relation to any natural phenomenon, the day 

 which begins it is equally so. In the Hebrew Scriptures its origin 

 being connected with the narrative of the creation, and the institu- 

 tion of the Sabbath being a perpetual commemoration of the 

 succession of divine acts by which the present state of the earth 

 and the creatures which inhabit it were called into being, the 

 seventh, or last day of the week, would naturally be that upon 

 which the Sabbath is celebrated, and according to this principle 

 Sunday would be the last and Monday the first day of the week. 

 Such, however, has not been the conventional arrangement. The 

 Sabbath, or seventh-day of the Jews, was the morrow of the Cruci- 

 fixion, and was Saturday ; the succeeding day being that of the 

 Resurrection, was consequently the first day of the Jewish week. 



Among Christians, this first day has accordingly been celebrated 

 as Sunday, or the day of rest and prayer, the Jews still of course 

 observing Saturday as their Sabbath. 



It has therefore been generally agreed to call Sunday the first 

 day of the week, but to invest it with those sacred attributes and 

 characters which in the fourth commandmenf were conferred upon 

 the seventh day. 



V. THE MONTH. 



51. The next chronometric Unit is the month, a name which 

 implies some correspondence with lunar phenomena. The relation 

 of this division of time to the moon is apparent in all languages. 

 Thus, while in Greek wv (men) is month, id\vr\ (mene) is moon, 

 both being derived from the Sanscrit Ml, measure, the Persian 

 M!H signifying also month. 



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